If you know enough biology, for many features it's obvious that they've been "cobbled together" from pre-existing bits and pieces. It's also pretty obvious that if there was a designer, they would have to be pretty incompetent - any true intelligence, starting from a clean slate, would design a lot of natural features in a much more reasonable way (as an example, just look at sperm production in mammals...).

My aching back and knees from too many years of tennis, stream surveys and backpacking are classic examples of lousy design. Another example is the fact that we breathe and eat via the same tube - easy to choke.

But my favorite example is one that creationists, stupidly, used for a long time as an example of "design" - the vertebrate eye, especially in comparison with the cephalopod eye. On a gross level, they are very similar but the cephalopod eye is much better designed.

The tissue form which the vertebrate eye is derived comes from the brain. Therefore, the light sensitive cells (rods and cones) are found behind the nerve cells - i.e., light has to pass through the nerve cells before striking the rods and cones. Also, those nerves have to leave the eye via the optic nerve, which passes through the retina, leaving a blind spot in each eye.

The tissue from which cephalopod eyes is derived is the skin. So, the light sensitive cells are already on the outside, with the nerve cells behind them, meaning that light hits the rods and cones directly and there is no blind spot.

"Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution."Theodosius Dobzhansky"Most people who hate the idea of evolution do so because if it was working properly, they'd be dead."Anonymous

The term "design" would have to be clearly defined. Does the designer need to have only one mind, no more and no less, to be called a designer? Must there be a goal in mind? Et cetera.

When humans make designs, they are creating means (the creation) to meet certain ends (the desired result). The creations meet those ends by way of causation. Although a creation may cause the desired result, it will also cause many other results that aren't necessarily desirable. Although the actual results are objective facts regarding the creation, the intended result is part of the creator, not the creation. That is, the intended result is subjective, not objective.The process of natural selection actually closely resembles the process of design. Although nature presumably has no desired result, it still brings about results. Of these various results, the most relevant is whether or not the "creation" is able to perpetuate itself. If the creation causes its own perpetuation, it will last a long time. If it does not, it will only last a short time.Thus the process of natural selection and the process of design bear resemblance. The only major differences is that nature designs blindly. Luckily, humans do not have to make their creations perpetuate themselves because they can always make more. This is the gift of having a goal-oriented mindset. As Robert Full put it, roughly, "Imagine if someone told you you had to build a car, then, inside that car, put a factory that makes more cars [sic]." http://www.ted.com/talks/robert_full_on ... ution.html

The arguments presented in this thread are about whether a human would design it that way. But how would a god design it if such a being existed? I don't know because I only know about human designs. I know what sorts of goals humans have, but not gods. I know what sorts of materials humans can manipulate, but not gods. I know what marks of culture might appear in human designs, but not divine designs.However, if the ID proponent has a specific god in mind, you can have a vague idea about what such a god might make. For example, if god doesn't like homosexuality, why is there a genetic basis for it? If god doesn't like death, why did he make us reliant upon that which decays us (oxygen)?

Most of mutations are harmful, it proves that an intelligent designer cannot cause mutations. Additionally if a person claim a statement, he himself must prove it and imploring proof for the rejection is philosophically wrong.

mnatashgaran wrote:Most of mutations are harmful, it proves that an intelligent designer cannot cause mutations...

Not true! (Though have no idea what it has to do with "intelligent designer")

Most mutations are sources of variation. Eye color, skin color, height, etc. We call such mutations "alleles". Compare the number of mutations responsible for the amount of variation that exists to the number of mutations that are harmful!

I'm not a geneticist, but I seem to remember form my genetics classes that most mutations are harmful and/or neutral. Many mutations that occur are never seen, as they would cause the cell to die - some cause cancer. We only see a portion of all of the mutations that occur.

"Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution."Theodosius Dobzhansky"Most people who hate the idea of evolution do so because if it was working properly, they'd be dead."Anonymous